CameraGetPreviewFrame

topic	languages	products
sample	csharp cpp cppcx	windows windows-uwp

Camera preview frame sample

Provides an end-to-end sample to show how to write a camera app using the Windows.Media.Capture API in conjunction with the DisplayInformation API to acquire preview frames from the camera stream for further processing.

Note: This sample is part of a large collection of UWP feature samples. If you are unfamiliar with Git and GitHub, you can download the entire collection as a ZIP file, but be sure to unzip everything to access shared dependencies. For more info on working with the ZIP file, the samples collection, and GitHub, see Get the UWP samples from GitHub. For more samples, see the Samples portal on the Windows Dev Center.

Specifically, this sample will cover how to:

1. Manage the MediaCapture object throughout the lifecycle of the app and through navigation events.
2. Acquire a camera located on a specific side of the device. In this case, the sample attempts to get the rear camera.
3. Start and stop the preview to a UI element, including mirroring for front-facing cameras.
4. Get a preview frame using both overloads for the method.
5. Get it as a Direct3DSurface and display information about the frame: Width, Height, Format.
6. Get it as a SoftwareBitmap, display information about the frame: Width, Height, Format, and optionally display it on the screen and/or save it to disk.
7. Handle page rotation events to apply any necessary corrections to the preview stream rotation, ensuring acquired preview frames have the correct orientation and aspect ratio.
8. Handle MediaCapture Failed event to clean up the MediaCapture instance when an error occurs.

Due to the custom UI that this sample implements, any messages intended for the developer are printed to the debug console.

Related topics

Conceptual

Capture photos and video with MediaCapture
Get a preview frame

Reference

Windows.Media.Capture.MediaCapture namespace
Windows.Media.Capture.MediaCaptureInitializationSettings constructor
Windows.Media.Capture.MediaCaptureInitilizationSettings.VideoDeviceId property
Windows.Devices.Enumeration namespace
Windows.Devices.Enumeration.DeviceInformation class
Windows.Devices.Sensors.SimpleOrientationSensor class
Windows.Graphics.Display.DisplayInformation class
Windows.UI.Xaml.Media.Imaging.WriteableBitmap class

Related samples

• CameraGetPreviewFrame sample for JavaScript (archived)

System requirements

• Windows 10
• Camera

Build the sample

1. If you download the samples ZIP, be sure to unzip the entire archive, not just the folder with the sample you want to build.
2. Start Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 and select File > Open > Project/Solution.
3. Starting in the folder where you unzipped the samples, go to the Samples subfolder, then the subfolder for this specific sample, then the subfolder for your preferred language (C++, C#, or JavaScript). Double-click the Visual Studio Solution (.sln) file.
4. Press Ctrl+Shift+B, or select Build > Build Solution.

Run the sample

The next steps depend on whether you just want to deploy the sample or you want to both deploy and run it.

Deploying the sample:

1. Select Build > Deploy Solution.

Deploying and running the sample:

1. To debug the sample and then run it, press F5 or select Debug > Start Debugging. To run the sample without debugging, press Ctrl+F5 or select Debug > Start Without Debugging.